Serayah lets her curls go wild on the cover of ASOS‘s October 2015 issue.

The 19-year-old actress opened up about landing Tiana on Empire, her own music and meeting Taylor Swift. Check it:

On life before Empire: “Before I landed Empire, I was in college, working at H&M part-time. I’d been doing auditions and modelling and I did a few Skechers commercials. My friend from school’s mum is a casting director and he told me about this character she was looking for really, really quickly, because I think the past girl hadn’t worked out. So I went to audition three times in front of executives from Fox [the network that makes Empire] and the head of music at Columbia Records. I sang a Brandy song and I was totally nervous, but I got a call a couple of days later saying, ‘They love you and you’re coming to Chicago to film!’”

On how she first met Taylor: “I was driving, and my mum called me, saying, ‘So guess who just called me? Taylor Swift!’ I was clicking the volume on the phone to make sure I’d heard properly. Mum was trying to explain and I kept cutting her off with questions! She said that Taylor had asked for my number so she could talk through everything about the video, I was like, ‘Don’t ask me! Just get her to text me now!’ When Taylor called, she said, ‘Thank you so much for saying you’ll do it’ and I replied, ‘Come on! Anything! I’m there!’ But it just shows that huge pop stars or actors or actresses can still have that humility, which is so inspiring. A lot of people, as they get bigger, they lose that, so it’s really cool to see someone leading by example. Especially for young girls.”

On plans for her music: “I’m not signed to a label yet, but since the show, people seem really interested in working with me. I’m already getting to work with people I never thought I’d work with, like Ne-Yo. My favourite way to record is to have everybody in the room shouting out different ideas.”

Serayah is also pictured below at the cover celebration held at Gjelina on Monday afternoon (August 31) in Venice, Calif.